My hut -I've long to lite my candles. And this is me, I've just listened to: candles are expensive, lights are cooler! and forgotten, pulling the shiny pink fabric off the fluorescent lights -my mom said today, I see everything deeper. And fluorescent lights just give me a headache.
** Love, LUST, that is unrequited destroys. Please help me to stay sane and save her.**
*There is art that is seen in the "minds eye," there is are that is seen in the mind, and then it is brought to the paper, there is art in the paper and there just is* (Editors comment: Woow.)
** Two blinking ORANGE lights**
*On the bed, yes and it is scary with tails.*
Things -things that I have seen is the title to this entry. And its mostly going to be literally that. Things that you will not necessarily understand but we can talk about it. Also Touching moments.
It is all lies lies lies l
ies lies lies lies lies li
es lies lies lies lies li
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So, touching moments. I was touched by Koly's family, I'd like to say, a civilized bunch of people, and not just because they sat perched on the couch with their legs crossed and their hands poised on their knees (not sprawled on the floor, in the sand, on top of each other and upside down in all directions -not because their clothes were clean, new, and in style, western. Except for the mom, Bigue. Bigue wears traditional Sereer clothes and calls them "villagers" but she does not speak Sereer. She has false teeth, the first I've ever seen here and their big, and make up for why I didn't realize what was going on with her mouth at first. But she greeted me right away, as a human. No "can you cook cheb u jeen?" "can you eat chere?" "Naka Nguekokh? Neex naa?" It was like I knew her forever, she laughed at my face. Perhaps its that she can't quite distinguish I am a separate person from Nilan.
~Jen's coming! Annemarie's coming!~
No, as much as I want to say they're civilized because of the niceness of their house, or because Abdoulaye craves it with curled lips over his gap tooth, or because I could see myself here curling up on the air-conditioned perfect pristine black plush leather couch, and turn on one of two satellite TVs -air conditioned clean plastics sterile rooms on eather side to explore. And good food, salad, tomatoes, and meat, maybe goyabe juice AND soda (2 types), and cakes from the Brioche Doree. Are these people really Senegalese? It makes me embarrassed that I've spent this whole time excusing the villagers, mostly my family, as non-humans.
They're just completely rude. Fatou Senghor told me yesterday that she thinks Adama is bad because she is always mad and that goes to your kids too. I am so sick of them and feel like I've wasted so much time...but hey family is our lot in life,
So, touching moments...
It was that Koly's family didn't ask me for anything, they in fact gave me a bunch of stuff. I felt like the village cousin visiting my rich, city relatives. And the conversation was delicious about Nguekokh but in an educated framework. They saw me as a real human, if anything someone they felt more pity for than awe just at the fact of my skin.
And Wadaa's sweet boutique -with the sac of fresh breads to take home -and all the smiling faces and warm energetic greetings -though brief -everyone there had heard about me! The faded dim of yellow fluorescent walls -the street right outside/inside. Siga's sallow eyes..a day at the beach with Khadim...he's eating a chocolate sweet bread, he hasn't eaten all day. His moldy room. And his slightly sallow, getting just to the hill, scarred ruddy slightly scared face. His wife's sick. And he works every day of the week from 7:00 AM -9:00 PM., taking all four of his weekly days off to come home to Nguekokh at the end.
Touching moment: sitting down at the computer today in the cyber in the heat of the day after waiting all morning for the courrant coupe, mosquitoes biting my legs and I'm tired, a wave comes over me, I could lose it, but I don't have the luxury. And I realize how detailed they (Waly and Mamadou) got last night as I cracked peanuts with Fatou.
***
- Diegane and Modou getting up to tie my stuff on my bike yesterday.
- Touching moments ended when I came home and the kids got mad at me over ciriches and fought over them.
- And Nabu Ndiaye shouted in my ear "Where have YOU been?"
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- My box and vegetable bag falling off my head and shady rasta guy coming to help me pick it up
- cyber cafe woman waiting for me, napping on the chairs, until 3 PM. She missed lunch.
***
WEIRD MOMENT: Djibi Diop, fat with innocent eyes but in control, catching himself staring at me and going slack jawed, putting on his sunglasses, round and dark -in the dusky light of the setting sun.
...they counted the screws! To make a for room bedroom, bath (ha!) and kitchen...93 screws! They bent over that scrap of paper, scrawling in French, for a good 2 hours. They created a whole building in their heads. So, I had to write the project today. Again, is this giving them too much "Aww" credit?
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